Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.
In this Love Letter To A Record series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.
Lewis Coleman – Weyes Blood’s ‘Titanic Rising’ (2019)
Dearest Titanic Rising, my favourite discovery of the last year, I will try to describe you through some specific moments of connection.
I first came across the surface of your waters one late night crawling from a bar to a home after a show, “Wake up, baby, it’s getting late now”, you said to me, through the vessel of ‘Everyday’, your witty, parading, exaggerated joy reminded me of ‘Happy Together’, while thoughts of Judee Sill turned their way around a glass of red wine. Who’s this? ‘Ways Blood’ I thought I heard, a new addition to the phone notes I try desperately not to forget but know deep down that the connection is going to have to be forced upon me again for it to stick.
So you came again, a couple of weeks later, you’re right, I’d forgotten about you, I’m sorry, you must have known I was going to let you slip away amongst the cluttered sideboard of my memory, you reminded me with ‘Everyday’ through the car speakers and I noticed you once again, a persistent title, my persistent friends making sure the seed was getting the attention needed to grow. Check out the album cover too. At that moment you revealed your face to me, ‘Titanic Rising.’
Almost a year to the day I sat down to meet you properly, you warned me “A Lot’s Gonna Change.” The opening plodding, expectant, wonder-filled piano chords sent me back four years to another visceral experience, sitting down with Andy Shauf’s ‘The Party’, one I almost wrote a letter to today.
If I could go back to a time before now/Before I ever fell down/Go back to a time when I was just a girl/When I had the whole world/Gently wrapped around me.
It’s hard to describe the feeling I get from this song. Nostalgic and prognostic of our ever-growing internal/external story. Often I have played it this year and felt that swirling, overwhelming, ache and joy.
I continued on your journey, you talked about ideas of expansiveness and loneliness in ‘Andromeda’ A big wide open galaxy, nothing in it for me, except a heart, that’s lazy, these thoughts on display not just in your words but in the demeanour of the textures surrounding, a soundscape I found myself falling for.
“I…I’d really like to meet you in person”, I said, after a while of feeling nervous as to how you’d react. “I’m coming to Australia in March”, you said, “oh and it’s Weyes Blood, like ‘Wise’ not ‘Ways’, silly.”
In the stretch of time leading up to this, I consumed and shared you widely, not surprised by the resonance it had with certain friends who I bonded with over you. I was finding so much comfort in your narrative, the known unknown, constant regeneration, and those chords! I could speak all day on the emotional weight of those chords on me.
Some eight months ago I would see three shows with you on display. One sat and sophisticated, one inebriated with the sun washing down on me, one the day after, depleted and reflective and desperate for one more fix, did I know subconsciously these were going to be the last shows I would see to this day? As a fast approaching wave threatened to drag us all under, I stayed rooted to the ground as you peacefully exclaimed don’t cry, it’s a wild time, to be alive. How reassuringly un-reassuring it was, and was just the nuanced sentiment I needed to harden my edges as pandemic finally crashed through.
In this wild time, you gave me something to believe, I’m glad I finally found the time to write you this letter.
Yours forever,
Lew
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Melbourne based musician Lewis Coleman just released his debut album ‘Method of Places’ via Ivy League Records. Described by Lewis as a ‘memory palace’, ‘Method of Places’ blends indie rock, electronica, jazz and soul, bristling with big ideas and artfully arranged songs that are both abstract and melodic, shifting and morphing around you, pulsing with hushed intensity, but always grounded by a rhythm section so spartanly groovy that your head can’t help but nod along in assent.
Give the ‘Method of Places’ a listen, here.
